Seven months ago, we watched a football game that was supposed to be compromised by the elements. Instead, the weather played no part and the Super Bowl was bad all on its own. The Seahawks blowout of the Broncos was a hard sendoff into the seven months of desolation that is the off-season, but sometimes life and football are cruel like that.

Then, for a while, nothing happened. Oh wait, a lot of stuff happened – just none of it on a football field. There was Michael Sam’s quest to make an NFL roster, Johnny Manziel drunk on an inflatable swan, Jim Irsay getting busted for a DWI with pills and $50,000 in his car, DeSean Jackson getting cut for supposedly being in a gang, Ray Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee out of an elevator, Wes Welker allegedly doing molly, Darren Sharper being revealed as a monster, the NFL acting for a while like it was going to ban the N-word, the NFL actually banning crossbar dunks, a bunch of old owners dying, Le’Veon Bell not realizing you could get a DUI for being high, the Buccaneers producing a novel-length article about Lovie Smith, Russell Wilson randomly getting divorced, the Redskins buying backhoes for good PR and, of course, the league determining that Jimmy Graham is a tight end and not a wide receiver.

Those events diverted our attention long enough to make us forget that the sport we love was still impossibly far in the offing. Some of those events made us despair that they are inevitably the kind of things we have to endure just to be a football fan. Even worse, they seemed like a stream of negatives unbroken by the game that makes those things relevant. Finally, with patience, our reward has come.

I can’t promise you that everything will be great about the season ahead. I know when Week 1 arrives, the unbridled excitement makes people overlook the fact that there will be some ugly games, disquieting injuries, dumb media-manufactured storylines, league mismanagement, officiating controversies and Chris Berman.

But I can promise you that the next five months will be better than the seven that preceded them. Because we’ll have football, glorious football. Oh, and shit-talking, schadenfreude, amazing plays, new tactical wrinkles, new jokes and, thankfully, just a different set of outcomes. The off-season is so long, it gives pundits time to rehash what happened the year before so many times that those events for a while achieve a sort of permanence. That’s why, when a new season comes, a lot of experts have a hard time predicting outcomes radically different than the ones that happened the year before, even though the NFL sees wild swings of fate with each passing season.

All that is here. All sports fans have to put up with a lot of bullshit. And NFL fans put up with more than their share this year. Starting tonight, we finally start getting what we were waiting for. We get football back.

Reading this summary of the off-season, and I can’t help but wonder if we would tolerate this level of asshatery from any other organization. If I found out that CocaCola let one of their executives off with a two week suspension for knocking his girlfirend unconscious and dragging her into an elevator by her hair, and then turned around and fired another guy for smoking weed, you better believe I’d switch to Pepsi.

Not with the NFL though. Goodell and the players can basically do what they want and I will still be waiting for opening day like a 6 year-old waits for Christmas. Because what am I going to do? Watch the NBA? Fuck that. College Football? I live in the Northeast. Baseball? I was born in the 80’s so there’s now way I have the attention span for that sport. Hockey? lolno.

Last year I found out my team’s TE murdered between 1 and 3 people and my reaction to that is still almost entirely tied to what our offense could be like if he still played on the team. That’s pretty fucked up.

So I’m just going to embrace the cult-like hold the NFL has over me …. FOOTBALL IS BACK. MY LIFE HAS MEANING AGAIN.

On a side note, I had an RC cola a couple days ago, for the first time in decades and guess what, it is far superior to pepsi and coke. (still remembers finding cherry RC at a random midwest gas station on a childhood family road trip, it was heaven in a steel can!)

There’s a hot dog stand across from one of the courthouses I frequent that will randomly have RC in stock once in a while. I can never resist getting one and it never lives up to my expectations and I never learn.

What is more likely to happen: A nationally viable third cola brand or a nationally viable third political party?

On a related note the convenience store in my building sells Tab. I’m convinced there is a secret floor in my office full of brokers perpetually stuck in 1986, and they only emerge to purchase this Tab. And Cocaine.

Ok, i get having a strong preference for Coke over Pepsi, and even more so for diet coke over diet pepsi,but to actually enjoy coke but not enjoy pepsi is baffling to me. They’re both soda, and soda is delicious.

No one likes to talk about the downside of the opening of the season but I’m here to spill. Walking around all day with a boner leads to a fair bit of chafing! As far as the women on the site are concerned, I assume your ovaries are swollen and whatnot.

I forgot to mention it before but I heard Cowherd “interviewing” Peter King on his radio show; JESUS! It was like a bus full of cute babies crashing and burning;the shear damage and terror it cause was exceeded by my inability to look away.

I think having discussions about gender, sexuality and race are what bring Americans together and I simply can’t wait for more discussions about all that, encompassed in the great sport of professional football.

1.) Arrive at work. Configure desk to hide the fact that I forgot pants AGAIN.
2.) Boot up computer. Open Outlook and then ignore it. Open Chrome, load KSK And all my fantasy football teams. Tinker with fantasy football teams and check for player updates.
3.) Lunch
4.) Attempt to cram a full day’s work into a few hours.
5.) Sneak out of work early.
6.) Buy a family meal at Popeye’s Chicken, mixed hot and regular, with cajun rice and extra biscuits.
7.) Speed home, grab beers from fridge, arrive at couch.
8.) Plant ass in ass groove on couch. Fire up TV and laptop.
9.) Eat chicken, drink beer, make jokes, and WATCH SOME MOTHERFUCKING FOOTBALL.

Start playing CoD Zombies at roughly midnight
Stop playing at 2:30 am
Read until 3:00 am because now I’m all wired
3:30 go to bed
9:00 get up
11:00 arrive at office
12:00 lunch! KSK and FF!
1:00 Meet with boss, announce I’m taking tomorrow off

Itinerary for later
-Get propane for grill
-go home
-Play with dog and feed
-Accuse dog of sabotaging my pool picks
-Open first beer (IPA)
-Grill salmon and keep pronouncing it phonetically
[game starts somewhere here, let game run for a while so I can FF through talk and commercials]
-Slice some vegies
-EAT
-IPA
-IPA
_IPAs

Well komrades, I’ve ordered that Sunday Ticket on my tablet app because I live in New Haven County (Greatriots have CBS priority here) and I’ll be god-damned if I’m forced to watch a game in standard definition (for some strange reason I get the NY CBS affiliate on standard definition but not HD).

Yeah, watching games in New Haven County as well, I think of that NY CBS affiliate in SD as a weird compromise. Usually one time a year they show a game that is that much better that I’ll watch that (if I can’t make it to the bar).

Who am I kidding, I’m watching Redzone in HD because up to 20% of the late games will be the Chargers!

Ah, now I see the confusion. In New Haven County, we get New Haven’s CBS and Fox HD, but they are both Patriot “home market channels” – for some strange reason, the cable system also gives us the New York CBS affiliate, but only in SD. That channel sometimes has a different game.

A boring post, but at least it’s in a old comment section so no one will see it

Have installed, at various intervals around the compound, smelling salts and hypodermics full of adrenaline in glass covered boxes. Children, wife, and faithful dog know when to break glass and administer contents to daddy when his BAC has exceeded Ray Rice’s yard per carriers and/or games suspended. Whatever comes first.

I have a phone interview in an hour. I hate phone interviews, they combine my hatred of talking on the phone with my hatred of being judged by strangers. After that I can commence with the pre-game celebrations!

I think that went okay actually…I always forget that I’m actually pretty good at talking about what I do. Plus the standards for communication skills in math people are pretty low, so it’s not hard to exceed expectations. Anyway, that’s over, football is still to come! WOO! *takes off pants, opens beer* *notices this is the last beer, puts pants back on, goes to store*